One of the greatest issues the endurance coach is faced with, these days, is an inherent difficulty to promote their business. And, with the competition present all over the place, it’s hard to achieve a decent business flow to make ends meet, or just leave the day job and coaching endurance athletes for a living. Anyone’s first reaction would be to create a good Facebook page; and, rightly so. That’s why, today, we’ll go through a number of different ways to boost your Facebook page, with ease.
Why you need Facebook for your business
Whether your endurance coaching business is based on remote services or physical presence, you still need one or more ways to reach your customers. For more than a decade, online advertising has been the more affordable and direct way for small businesses to reach their audiences. Through Facebook pages, of course!
With the number of mobile devices on the rise, a late 2020 study showed that the typical social media user will dedicate just below two and a half hours of their day browsing through social media. This trend has enabled businesses worldwide to use social media as marketing and sales tools, to improve their deal flows, positively affecting their bottom lines. And, Facebook has taken the opportunity to help businesses increase their business potential.
What you’ll need to get started on your Facebook page
Before you start promoting your endurance coaching services on your Facebook page, though, you will need a few things, first. This shouldn’t pose any problems, since you probably already have these things available from when you started your coaching business, a while back.
- Market segments: What groups of people who share one or more common characteristics, can you approach the easiest? How are they described?
- Customer profiles: Which variations of your typical customers can you profile and use to make the best decisions in making your offering more attractive to them?
- Positioning: What are the benefits of your endurance coaching services to these customer profiles? How do you make your customers think and feel about your services?
- High-level goals: What are some specific, measurable results you want to achieve and maintain as your business grows?
Now, you need to use these things, to be able to boost your Facebook page; and your business.
Create your strategy
Based on your market segments, customer profiles, positioning and high-level goals, come up with a go-to-market strategy. In other words, create a series of steps you can take to bring awareness to your business — or, better yet, to your brand — gaining athletes’ trust and converting them into loyal customers.
There is no magic formula to do that, but you can start by taking the steps we’ve prepared for you, below. After a while, as you monitor each end, you’ll find that some bring better results than others. You can use them even more, to yield better results and increase your incoming leads. Let’s get started!
26 Ways to promote your business through Facebook
Keep in mind that any new endeavor comes with its hurdles. That said, the first few followers are the toughest to get on board your Facebook page. To explain, they have no frame of reference as to the quality of your services; and there’s no one there to tell them, yet. But, with some patience and a healthy amount of persistence, you can do it! Here are 26 ways to boost your Facebook page and promote your business:
1. Build a base audience
Facebook is, essentially, a search engine. People, nowadays, use it to find products and services. If they bump into your page, they need information to verify they’ve found what they were looking for. And that’s just the first part of the deal.
To get things going, potential clients need to be able to — at least partially — trust your Facebook page for validity. That’s why you’ll need some initial followers, to show newcomers that there are already people that trust you. Start with inviting friends and family to join, like and follow your page, using the “Send Invite” functionality, on the navigation menu at the top of your page.
2. Brand your page and keep it updated
Consistent, quality graphics go a long way in promoting your page as a professional-level outlet. Create a logo, to use as a profile icon and a high-quality graphic for a cover photo, to match; aesthetics is key. And if you already have a website, use the same aesthetics to dress up and boost your Facebook page.
Of course, carefully branding a page is only another building block for your presence. Inactive pages, however well-branded, put people off. Besides, if there’s nothing useful to see, how would they know to work with you?
3. Claim a vanity URL
A vanity URL looks something like this: www.facebook.com/yourbusinessname
Using a vanity URL, your Facebook page will feel even more meticulously branded and will look professional to visitors. And that starts them up with higher levels of trust, as they first see your page.
Claim your vanity URL as soon as you meet the minimum requirements for eligibility.
4. Fill out the “About” section
If you’ve created a business grade Facebook page, you might find this section as “About us”. If it’s a personal page, you might find it as “About me”.
Regardless of the naming convention, its usefulness should be self-evident. You absolutely need to provide your visitors with as much information as possible about your business, answering as many of their questions as possible. To get you started thinking about it:
- What do you offer?
- When and how can they contact you?
- Where are you located (if applicable)?
- Can they find out more on your website? Do you have one?
- BONUS: Do you showcase your work, somewhere?
Adding in this basic information is a great way to boost your Facebook page!
5. Produce high-quality, interesting and helpful content
As with every social medium, Facebook is all about connecting with your audience. And, part of that is relatability; you need to produce interesting, helpful and relatable content for your audience to consume. Needless to say, you need it to be of high quality.
Now, chances are, you already have a website and may already have some high quality content on it. Perhaps, you have your own blog. Well, if you don’t, start one. Facebook offers some great automation tools for you to syndicate your blog and boost your Facebook page, without having to spend the time to do it by hand, every time around.
If you’re wondering what types of content might be interesting, helpful and relatable, here are some ideas:
- Tips, tricks and how-tos
- Customer testimonials and interviews or case studies
- Industry news and events
- Video shorts (<60”) that show you or an athlete of yours, in action
- Facebook Live streaming, on a subject that your followers would typically start a conversation with
Optimize your presentation
Minding how your visitors and followers experience your Facebook page is a great way to improve how they find information and what they do with it. To do that, use:
- Smart, informative captions with what people search for
- Contrasting colors; Different than the colors of the platform
- Emotional micro-copy, based on your customer profiles; Introduce an “Wow” factor
- Cliff-hangers; just what you need for user retention
Needless to say, the higher the quality of your content, the more you’ll increase the chances of it getting noticed. Your goal here is to produce content that people will share with others, outside of your follower base, giving a boost to your Facebook page.
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6. Maintain cadence and consistency
Another method to retain users, besides cliff-hangers, is to consistently produce the same — or a gradually increasing — quality of content, and to consistently release it the same days of the week, the same time of day. This type of cadence keeps followers from thinking whether you’ll be releasing something and when they should expect it. Besides, if they could set aside some time every week to consume your content on your Facebook page, wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that?
7. Add your Facebook link to your website
It sounds like a no-brainer. But, it’s easy to forget or procrastinate, sometimes. If you have a website, showcasing your services, it goes without saying that you should also include a link to your Facebook page, somewhere that everyone can find; say, in the footer section of your website. And, while this way you’d make it visible on all pages, you might also want to add it in a couple more places, where visitors are more likely to take action. Say, the page where you describe what you offer, or below the contact form. The extra traffic coming from these links should boost your Facebook page some more.
8. Add social share buttons to your blog posts
We mentioned, earlier, that if you don’t already have a blog section on your website, you should start one. But, don’t expect it to work like a Facebook page, with comments coming in from every acquaintance you ever had. Blog comments are obsolete. Nearly no one uses them any more. But, there is still a way for you to make your content even more shareable and start receiving comments on your well-made, conversation-starting blog posts.
To do that, you should add social share buttons to your blog posts. That way, readers will be able to instantly share an article they liked on Facebook, even if they’re reading it on your blog. A blog post published on your Facebook page is bound to start a conversation or two. That ought to boost your Facebook page as a distribution medium; and, you can handle any comments on Facebook, directly.
9. Add your Facebook page to your email signature
This may also sound like a no-brainer. But most people may not think to add a link to their Facebook page on their email signature. Heck; most people don’t even think to use a signature in their emails!
Most contemporary email clients or web-based email service providers will offer some kind of signature feature. Sometimes you’ll have to make due with a text link to your Facebook page. Other times, you may also be able to use social media icons, to make for a prettier link. Either way, spend a few minutes to create an email signature and include a link to your Facebook page. People will be able to easily click to find out more about you and your services, as well as your daily routine and activities. It’s a great opportunity to boost your Facebook page and develop brand awareness!
10. Promote your Facebook page on all the media you have access to
This one’s easy, as well. As soon as you’re confident about the quality of your Facebook page and its content, just raid all the social media, forums (fora), groups — even on Facebook — and anything else you can think of; drop them a line and notify them of your new Facebook page and ask them to like and follow. Remember, you always have to have that “call-to-action” bit — also known, in marketing, as CTA. Otherwise, people may not understand what you want them to do with that piece of information.
11. Use hashtags for better discoverability
As mentioned, Facebook has become more of a search engine for people to find other people, businesses, products and services, than a medium to connect with their friends. Facebook made hashtags available to us, to enable us to help people find us in their searches; thus helping them find what they are looking for.
That’s why hashtags are a great way to improve your discoverability and boost your Facebook page. Crudely put, hashtags form a way of categorizing content into neatly grouped posts on the same topic. That’s how they help people find — or stumble upon — your business, while looking for something. Use them with discretion, don’t stuff your posts with tens of hashtags. Try to strike a balance between sparingless and mere mindless stuffing. So, try to find:
- 1-2 hashtags that absolutely represent your post
- 2-3 hashtags of adjacent meaning
- 2-5 hashtags of broad scope, regarding your industry or services
If you have a uniquely named brand, you can just create (once) and shamelessly plug a branded hashtag in every post — or, just the ones you deem appropriate — to keep track of the conversations around your brand.
With that, you should end up with a nice batch of 5-10 hashtags for your post. But, you might be wondering “How do I know which hashtags to use?”; and rightly so. Quality is not equal among hashtags; and, that means, not all hashtags will help improve your discoverability. Explore each hashtag first; find out if it contains useful content that people like and if it’s used regularly. If you see one post per week with a handful of reactions on them, it’s probably not one to help you boost your Facebook page.
Monitor competition’s hashtags with high engagement
A great way to start using good quality hashtags is to monitor your competitors and find out what they are using, identifying the level of engagement for each one. Anything upwards of 500 likes is a good sign that a hashtag can help boost your Facebook page, bringing awareness to your business.
12. Join Facebook groups
All industries have their own communities. Be it small ones or gigantic ones, they’re somewhat of a requirement in all fields. That’s because, in formalizing a business model, each industry works with contributed bits that eventually form said business model. And, usually, communities remain extremely active until that is done and moderately active after that milestone, providing fixes, innovation and even disruptive ideas, as the space evolves.
If you’re not on at least a few Facebook groups, you should find some, at your quality standards, and join in. Conversations you start or contribute to, will definitely boost your Facebook page, as well. And while you’ll get faster results if your industry is just developing, the benefits are considerable even after it has hit its equilibrium.
If you’re up to it, create your own group
This step is a bit more daring. But, if you have the time, resources and a few useful things to say, you can start building your own group; perhaps, for a niche segment. It may take time to build into a healthy channel for revenues, but it will help greatly, in the grand scheme of things.
13. Post any status updates about your services
Not all visitors come to your website. Some of them may only follow you on social media; or, even more specifically, on your Facebook page. And, while your website readers may get all the information they need about your services, as soon as it’s out, social media followers may not.
Conjure up a quick announcement, post or story to tell your followers anything you need them to know. They won’t look for it on their own; you have to tell them. And, as it happens with human nature, people are forgetful. If something really matters to you, you need to come back and remind them. A “Transformation Tuesday (#tft)”, “Throwback Thursday (#tbt)” or “Flashback Friday (#fbf)” hashtagged type of reminder may work just fine, in most cases. In fact, you may find comeback opportunity hashtags for every day of the week, if you put your mind to it.
Play around with your titles and use high quality images, and you should be able to drive engagement to most of your posts.
14. Post status updates from your industry
If you’re looking to identify as an expert or influencer, yourself, you need to go the extra mile. Your potential customers will not have time to look around for any changes in the industry. You might be able to offer them a window into the space of endurance training, with useful re-posts from good reliable sources that you, yourself, trust to keep ahead of your game.
This type of content could, at times, be more appropriately shared on Facebook groups. But, since you want to boost your Facebook page, it wouldn’t hurt to make a few exceptions.
15. Share any promos and discounts
Chances are, your website will be attracting less traffic than the reachable audience through your Facebook page. Especially if you use ads, to promote your services; more on that, later. But, there’s more you can do to boost your Facebook page.
Any time you happen to run a promo or discount on your website, create a post, image, video or Facebook ad and put it out there, for people to search, find and see. If possible, include a link to the promo or discount page on your website. That way, you’ll have people coming to your website, to learn more about it and, consequently, learning more about you and your business, overall.
16. Interact with other businesses, market experts, advisors and influencers
It goes without saying, an inactive account is a dull account. No one wants to follow a Facebook page that doesn’t look updated, taken care of and interesting. Part of your activity — as per Facebook’s algorithm — should include interaction with other businesses, market experts, advisors and influencers. That’s your way of telling Facebook you’re still active and you’re passionate about certain subjects. And, besides the intricacies of the algorithm, if you start conversations with other people in your industry, your content will be more appealing to your prospective clients. So, boost your Facebook page through interaction!
17. Engage with your audience directly
Your current and future clients are people. And people like to interact, talk about things and be heard. Show them you care about what they have to say, by engaging with them in productive conversations. Like their posts and use stickers or any other means to convey your feelings. Answer to their comments within a few hours or up to a day. They — and Facebook, too — will appreciate it! And, most importantly, it’s your way of telling them you’ll care about them the same — if not more — when they become your clients. What’s there to lose?
18. Run polls, ask questions and conduct Facebook contests
If you need to learn something from your potential clients, go ahead and ask them. If you need to determine whether an idea or thought you had, or an observation you made is well-founded, run a poll. And, if you want to create extra engagement, conduct Facebook contests.
If you do it smartly, you’ll be able to get answers to all your questions and keep their contact information, to keep them in the loop for everything interesting. And, remember; the more exposure you get, the more traffic you’ll gain, the more leads you’ll generate. And, the more leads you can generate, the more of them will eventually convert into customers. Don’t lose faith, though, if you don’t see results the first few times around. These things take time. You’ll eventually be able to boost your Facebook page, even more!
19. Share customer feedback and collect testimonials
Now, since you’re engaging with your audience, answering comments and getting feedback, why not share it with everyone? With their permission, of course!
We’re guessing your clients are already part of your audience, but it should work, just the same, either way.
Another thing you can do is ask your clients for a testimonial. If you’re keeping them happy, they’ll easily do you the courtesy. And, again, with their permission, you can publish these testimonials on your website, on social media and, perhaps, on print, if you still do that. People trust other people more than they trust a business. Seeing a sincere testimonial on their feed about your services, might be just the nudge they needed to go on and subscribe to your services. And that’s how you boost your Facebook page, like a pro!
20. Ask followers to tag you in posts and stories
User engagement goes a long way in promoting your business. You can gracefully turn your followers into marketers, for free, by asking them to tag you in posts and stories. It’s like free advertising. And it matters, since they will only do it if they mean it.
21. Enable the Call to Action button
TIme to turn your followers into clients. As mentioned, adding a call to action to your page is telling people what you want them to do next. You can choose where the call to action button leads, but make sure it makes sense in the context you use it. It could lead to your website, to one of the groups you like, or your own group. Facebook lets you use up to 7 call to action buttons, but be discreet; don’t go too fancy. Otherwise you might seem too needy or like you’re manipulating them; you don’t want to do that.
22. List your events
If you’re into educating your clients about any subject related to their endurance training tactics, why not host an event for all your audience to enjoy and learn something new?
Now, you still need a strategy to go about it. Set up a series of topics, think about their role in helping establish your position in the industry, find ways to win points of trust and devise a method to bring all the participants you can into your sales funnel. Then, script the first few events before you get started, sit back and make sure you can sustain them for a while.
If everything works out, start hosting them at a steady pace, on times and dates you know most people will be available. And, if you’re not sure about their availability or what topics they like, you can always run a poll to ask them!
23. Use video content / Stream Facebook Live video
Sometimes, an event may not be enough to educate your followers. If you find that people keep asking more trivial questions, you can stream on Facebook Live and answer their questions, perhaps, even allowing them to make more questions as you speak. That’s a great way to boost your Facebook page; plus, you keep your audience on their toes and anticipating your advice.
Now, streaming is not a requirement, although it is a great addition to your toolbox. You may prepare advice or quick presentations in the form of video content. You can record yourself or some activity on your phone and upload it, or you can work with a professional to produce higher quality video content. It depends on how you intend to use it, though, so don’t be afraid to do both, to boost your Facebook page!
24. Use personalized ads
As mentioned before, you need to share your ideas with your audience. You need to share your promos and discounts; and you can use ads to reach more people. Let’s return to that notion and play around with it, for a moment.
Since Facebook has become a search engine for people to find businesses, people, products and services, you can use that to your advantage, to help them find you. And, we’ve discussed quite a few methods to do that, so far. But, what about ads? What’s the difference?
In case you didn’t already know, Facebook gathers information about you from your profile, from your searches and from whomever you’re connected with. With that information, they can perform what’s called “behavioral marketing”. In simpler terms, this means personalized ads. Personalization is a great thing in ads, because you can shape them just as you need them for a specific group of people, and bring in many more relevant leads, optimizing your spending for each ad.
So, advertising on Facebook doesn’t have to be as expensive as you may have thought. Facebook offers some exceptional filtering capabilities, for you to target your audience with really specific, relevant ads. This means, each ad is served to people who are highly likely to be interested in what you have to offer. And that’s more bang for your buck!
Go ahead, then! Create your first ad and play with it. Customize your target audience, monitor its progress and familiarize yourself with the tools available. Once you feel comfortable with it, try to segment your audience, play with different messaging and increase your budget as much as it makes sense. Ads are a great way to boost your Facebook page!
25. Answer comments or complaints within 2 hours
As you might imagine, you need to reply to any and all comments on your page. Putting the simplicity of it aside, it’s the only way to let your audience know that you’re actively listening.
Now, no one is going to wait indefinitely for your reply. You need to structure a standard operating procedure, where you timebox your replies. Try to make it your business, to reply within two hours. And if you’re in a different timezone, try to keep it in the 24 hour timeframe. After all, make no mistake; this will greatly boost your Facebook page.
26. Regularly check your comments and requests on Facebook
Similarly, you need to check comments and requests on Facebook. Most people prefer to send you a message on Facebook than typing in their email address and a potentially more complicated form, just to ask a question. In other words, people invariably go with what’s easier.
For yourself, failing to keep track of comments and requests on Facebook may mean you don’t get the client. But, for any interested parties, if people can see you’re not actively monitoring your page, they may stop following you. So, definitely, keep a watchful eye on your follower base. It’s a great way to boost your Facebook page!
Bonus tips
We’ve got a couple more tips for you, if you’re active on other social media platforms, as well.
27. Create Instagram Reels to help promote your Facebook page
Create an Instagram reel; a 15-30 second video, complete with effects and audio. It’s a great way to spread the message on something you’re passionate about. And it’s a quick way to bring people in on your quality services, daily routine, your coaching methods and anything else you can think of! Since Instagram is now part of Facebook, that’s a nice way to boost your Facebook page. You can read more about it, here.
28. Create a Pinterest Pin, linking to your Facebook page
This one is really useful if you just created your Facebook page or if you just did a major overhaul of it, with new, interesting content for your audience. And, it’s as easy as it sounds. Just create a pin linking to your Facebook page and start receiving traffic from your Pinterest page.
TL;DR — Boost your Facebook page, starting today
A Facebook page falls under the category of “essentials” for any business, these days. Regardless if you’re an endurance coach or any other type of coach, finding ways to boost your Facebook page is cardinal to your ability to bring in new business. And, of course, since your website is not likely to attract as much traffic as Facebook does, what better way to expedite your online presence and visibility than using Facebook to do it?
And, with Facebook’s features as a search engine for finding people, businesses, products and services, you have a great set of tools to filter your target audience. Your campaigns will be visible to the most relevant of audiences; let alone, the consequent optimization of your budget, to the point of virtually no waste; if you do it right, that is. Go on then! Give it a try; use these tips to boost your Facebook page and come closer to reaching your potential, in a fraction of the time!